Mindscape Shuffle
by AegisX-TAIL
Summary: A battle with Slade leaves Raven comatose, and only one person can pull her out once more. But the dangers of entering an unknown mind are too much. What's a Master Thief like Red X to do? Oneshot prelude....


_**Mindscape Shuffle**_

By: _**AegisX**_

_**This is just a simple one-shot/prelude to another story that I'm currently working on. The lyrics in this thing are to the song Bliss by Muse… which I don't own… and I don't own the titans… that's about it. **_

_**AGX**_

"So, what's wrong with her exactly?"

"No one's sure... she was fighting off Slade one moment, then the next she brings down the roof on everyone."

"DUDE!!! She was yelling when she did that..."

"No... Those sounded like screams of pain."

Red X watched the titans from where he lay hidden. Once they all exited the room, he walked over to Raven's still form. "Can't really believe that a kiss will wake you up," he chuckled slightly at his remark.

He stepped back and took a seat on the floor, leaning against the bed. Once he did so, he withdrew the mirror that he had removed from Raven's room. He slowly unwrapped the bindings around it and the moment he looked into it, black tendrils of energy enveloped him.

After a brief moment of falling, he landed on the ground and rolled to his feet. His gaze quickly flickering around him. Once he was sure that there were no immediate attacks coming, he moved forward as he slowly scanned his surroundings.

"Nice decor..." X quipped as he saw the endless black expanse that surrounded the small rock continents around him. He was halfway through crossing a stone bridge that spanned the empty space when a roar cut through the air.

"I hate snakes..." with that said, he turned and ran across the bridge intending to avoid a confrontation with the fiery snake like creature behind him. He glanced behind him and jumped forward, just avoiding the fiery tendril that smashed into the bridge. He rolled and found himself in a different area, surrounded by flowers and the sky was a bright blue.

"Looks... too... happy..." He gave an almost involuntary shudder as he looked around... but as he continued stalking through the area, he noticed that most of the flowers were drying out. It seemed as if the area was dying. And that wasn't a good thing either.

He stepped through another archway and ended up in a giant stone maze. But like the area before, this one seemed to be dying as well. The stone was all cracked and the walls had collapsed in several parts.

He threw a pair of explosive X's at the wall, blowing a hole big enough to get through. He walked through the hole and stopped. "Where the hell'd you come from?" and several curses followed as he ran through the maze with the giant fiery snake following him.

He ran around a corner and saw the dead end. He ran forward and ran up the wall, only managing to kick off and flip away just as the snake crashed into it. As he flipped in the air, he launched several more of his explosive X's at the wall, along with a razor x aimed at the snake. The razor x did nothing to wound it but the collapsing wall finished it off.

He turned and traced his way through the last of the maze. At the end lay a pair of destroyed statues, scorch marks all over it giving him a pretty good idea as to what did that to them. He passed through another portal, and this time everything looked like the initial place he entered, except there in the center of a clearing (or what could be called a clearing) were metal cages.

"What are you doing here?" Raven's voice reached his ears as he walked over to the closest cage. He looked inside and caught sight of Raven wearing yellow instead of her trademark colors. "Don't you know what's happening? You have to get out of here." She sounded afraid and scampered away from the cage door as X sliced it open with the spinning x on his right glove.

"I'm here to save you... what else?" X answered as he went over to the next cage, catching sight of another Raven wearing pink. After several minutes, he freed them all and watched as they tentively stepped outside their prisons. "Where's the prime personality at?"

The Raven wearing gray, stepped forward and stuttered slightly as she answered "H-He's g-got her locked away." She broke into sobs and was comforted by the orange raven.

"Where's she at? I'll set her free if you can tell me where she's at."

"They're in the center of her mind." Rage snarled out as Bravery pointed towards a large city in the background. "We can lead you to the portal, but... we can't do much else." With a swirl of her green cloak, bravery started walked off and X quickly followed. He paused only to glance at all of raven's personalities that stayed behind. After several run ins with another of the snake creatures, they made it to the portal that would lead him to Raven.

"Thanks... and be careful. The last thing that Raven needs is for one of her personalities to get eaten by a fiery snake." X chuckled before walking through the portal, not seeing every single one of Raven's personalities appear behind bravery.

"He's... gonna die, isn't he?" Timid asked, tears in her eyes as she voiced her question.

"If he dies, then he's an idiot." Rage gave a growl before stepping forward and into Bravery. She was followed by the others until there only remained one.

_**AGX**_

The place where he ended up at seemed to be on the other side of the city. The floor was completely stone and what immediately caught his eyes was the giant octagonal shaped hole that was close by. A platform extended over it and thats where he caught sight of a creature stomping towards.

"AY!!! Put the goth princess down and step away!" X's shout caused the creature before his eyes to put Raven down as it whirled around. It seemed to be made of bone, it glared at him with glowing blood red eyes as it opened its mouth and released a terrible roar. "Damn... I don't like the look of this." X muttered as he eyed its razor sharp teeth and watched its tail coil and uncoil with a clicking sound. Its long, bone limbs were toped with vicious looking claws nearly 2 feet in length.

"Stupid human, don't you have any idea what I will do to you?" It roared in a distinctively male voice, stomping forward.

"You're gonna do more than breathe on me?" X laughed as it gave him a look of fury.

"You have sealed your fate." It lunged at him with a roar, lashing out with its claws. They dug furrows on the ground as X dodged out of the way before launching several of his razor x's at its head. They pinged off it and he was forced to roll out of the way when its tail came swinging out. He managed to almost avoid it by flipping away, with it leaving a long gash across the front of his suit.

"Okay... so the tail's sharp. Shit." with a sharp snik, both x blades extended from his gloves and started spinning fast. The moment that it got close to him again for another attack, he flipped over the claws and rolled to avoid the tail as he sliced across its leg. Or what passed for a leg with his left blade. The monster gave a loud roar as the blade cut into it and it lunged downwards to bite X. "Damn... talk about the jaws of life..." X moved away once more.

After several failed, mostly failed attacks by the monster, X was definitely pissed. "How the hell do I kill this thing?" he muttered as he watched it pace around him. He spotted the pit once more and ran towards it, leading the creature onto the platform where they barely had room. "So how about ending this, ugly?"

It roared once more and lunged at him. X jumped over the teeth, running both his blades across its skull as he landed onto it. It roared in agony as X sunk his left blade into its skull once more, holding onto it with his right hand. It was flailing around with its tail, striking at the platform repeatedly as it tried to dislodge X off its back. As the blade seemed to start spinning even faster and it started to collapse, the load crack of the breaking platform reached his ears.

_Everything about you is how I wanna be_

_Your freedom comes naturally_

_Everything about you resonates happiness_

_Now I won't settle for less_

"I hate shit like this..." X muttered as he plummeted downwards, watching as the dead creature fell even faster than him.

_Give me all the peace and joy in your mind_

_Everything about you pains my envying_

_Your soul can't hate anything_

"Where has he gone?" the amalgam of Raven's personalities pondered as it stepped towards Raven. She caught sight of the broken platform and she picked up Raven, leaving the area silently.

_Everything about you is so easy to love_

_They're watching you from above_

He spun in the air, spreading his arms as he tried to catch sight of anything that he could stop his descent with. "Damn... I need that belt," X cursed Robin as he plummeted downwards, just a bit slower than before. He looked around catching sight of a strange, blue hexagonal shaped opening where a body floated.

_Everything about you resonates happiness_

_Now I won't settle for less_

He sped past it and suddenly the pit was gone. He continued floating downwards through what seemed like a field of stars and down below a giant field of white awaited him. He sped past the star field and the world went white...

_Give me all the peace and joy in your mind_

_I want the peace and joy in your mind_

_Give me the peace and joy in your mind_

_**AGX**_

Raven awoke in the med bay of the tower with a headache. She slowly stood up and was immediately pulled into a crushing hug by Starfire. "Friend Raven! You are better!" she gushed happily while Raven felt her bones creak in protest.

"She's not gonna be if you don't let go, Star," Robin called out with a small chuckle as he entered the room.

"Thanks..." Raven muttered as Starfire released her.

"Are you okay now?" Robin's question was met with silence. "Raven?"

"Yes, I'm fine." Raven sounded slightly distracted as she took a step. Her foot bumped into something and she looked down to see her mirror on the floor. Quickly picking it up and wrapping it with its bindings again, she turned to Robin.

"I'm going to go meditate; I'll be down to eat later." Robin gave her a nod and she transported into her room.

She opened the little chest where she kept some of her things, like the mirror or Malchior's book; she caught sight of a small video player. Setting the mirror down and taking out the video player, she closed the chest and sat down on the floor. After a few minutes of examining the video player, she played back the most recent file and a holographic image of Red X coalesced.

_"If you're watching this, then it means that I managed to save you... but died since I didn't take this back with me." _Red X gave a chuckle at that.

Raven watched as the hologram rubbed the back of his neck as he continued with his explanation. _"You and your friends know me as Red X... but my name is..." _

_**A/N – Yep… and I'm done with this one shot… If you watch the Bliss music video, its clear that I borrowed part of it… and I don't own that… but eh… See you all around… **_


End file.
